Breakup.

Outside of Alaska, the term 'breakup' can have many meanings. For an Alaskan resident, however; one image leaps to mind. Dirty! Yep. Breakup = Dirty. Dirty breakups.

Okay, let me give you a little back-story, because I can see that you're lost. Or at least misled. First off, 'breakup' means the time of spring when stuff starts thawing (think of ice breaking-up). I know what you're thinking now. Pristine Alaskan air. Snowcapped mountains. Little trickles of water starting to flow in high-mountain streams. Birds chirping. The air actually starting to carry the scent of plant life - conifers. Nice, right?

I hate to pop your bubble, but for the huge number of residents who live in Anchorage or other cities, Alaska can be a very dirty place. Dirty overused paper money. Dirty bars. Dirty workers. Sometimes dirty air. And the dirtiest time in these dirty little Alaskan cities is breakup. I want you to picture half-a-year's worth of sand and gravel that had been liberally spread on the streets for traction. (if you were to cut into a roadside snowbank, you'd see a layer-cake of strata showing snowstorm/road sanding/snowstorm/more sanding...). Now add to this, cast off pop bottles, Big Mac cartons, cigarette butts, dog shit, etc. All nicely concealed during the winter under a beautiful blanket of pure looking white snow.

Until breakup.

Now imagine melting snow banks that are black with road grime. Seasoned with trash. Runoff flowing into the streets. The storm drain grates, by the way, are still plugged with ice. Pools of muddy cold water starting to form. Now add rush-hour traffic. Thousands of cars and trucks churning this mud-mix into an aerosol. Windshield wipers constantly going in an effort to see where you're driving! Washer fluid sold out at many stores.

Breakup! Are you starting to get the picture? Yikes! The scene above must be one of the Alaska Tourism industry's most closely guarded secrets. Right up there with oil drilling on parklands, and the definition of the word Oosik!

And guess what people. Breakup is almost here.